The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) announced on March 26 that there were 2,202 cases of abuse suffered by people with disabilities from family members, welfare facilities and employees of business establishments in fiscal 2019, with 2,398 victims. The number has remained almost unchanged from the previous fiscal year. Two of the victims died. A record 8,519 cases were reported to the local government.
Since September 2018, three residents have been transported from the facility as an emergency seven times in total, and all have been diagnosed with holes in the intestines, but the facility did not suspect the possibility of abuse at all.
A former temporary worker at a facility for the disabled in Higashiura Town, Aichi Prefecture, was arrested on suspicion of injury for kicking the abdomen of a resident in his 50s and causing serious injury. The man subsequently died, and police are investigating whether there are multiple other residents with similar injuries.
A man (43) is suspected of committing an obscene act against a teenage boy with intellectual disabilities in a public toilet in a park in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, three years ago in 2017, a 28-year-old man who had been admitted to the hospital was suspected of being injured by tying his limbs with a string and injuring him.
A former employee of the facility was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department for sexually assaulting a girl with intellectual disabilities who attended a facility in Katsushika-ku, Tokyo, and for taking a picture of the situation with a smartphone.
A camera in the facility shows multiple residents being assaulted, and a survey by Nishinomiya City revealed damage to a total of 10 men and women in their 20s and 50s in about a month. According to the city, the suspect admitted to the abuse and said, “I was busy and stressed by the new coronavirus.”
Examining the images left on the camera for about a month, we found that nine other residents in their 20s and 50s were repeatedly abused by holding their mouths, hitting their limbs and back, and kicking them.
A male employee in his thirties working at a support facility for persons with disabilities in Nishinomiya City has been disciplined and dismissed for repeated abuses such as hitting multiple residents and holding their face against the floor.
A 54-year-old CEO of a facility for people with disabilities has been arrested and charged with hitting a woman who had been admitted to a facility for the disabled in Kuki City, Saitama Prefecture. This was the second time the CEO was arrested after having been once arrested for sexually assaulting the woman at her home in Satte City, Saitama Prefecture in July. The CEO denies some of the accusations.
Barrier Free Japan